JH
Prime Minister.
Do you think you've missed the boat Mr. Jenkins seemed to imply?
PM
No. We've gone a lot further along the road to a compromise but we just haven't gone far enough yet. We both of us moved—our partners and Great Britain—we moved on the amount. There was more difficulty actually about how long the settlement would last. But when the amount offered was just about near what we would like, then it was not offered for a very long time. When they offered a long time, the amount was too little. So, we've gone a lot further than we did at Dublin but we're just not quite there yet.
JH
Are you quite sure the extra money on offer won't now be withdrawn? Does the Community not work like that?
PM
Well, you know, that was the threat after Dublin but, in fact, the Community has to continue. It needs other agreements. Our partners are interested in other agreements like agreement on the agricultural prices—very important for them; like trying to get an agreement on sheepmeat; we need other agreements on things like fisheries and it's very much in our interest that we should have them. And I think, if they want to get their agreements, then they must expect to reach acceptable solutions on ours. So really our interest is reciprocal.
JH
You seem, if I may say so, a lot more relaxed than you seemed after the Dublin Summit. Is this because you've been promised, in effect, a great deal more money and believe you'll get more still?
PM
I think we were fairly close but both of us thought we couldn't move any more. I thought I'd moved enough in British interest. They thought they'd moved enough in their own particular interest. And some will say that there was only about £100–£150 million dividing us. I think that's quite a lot. At any rate, it's quite a lot for one nation. It's not so much if it's divided among eight others. [end p1]
JH
Looked at the other way, though. You have in fact turned down an offer of … . is it … £800 million rebate this year and perhaps a bigger one next year. Isn't that rather rash?
PM
Well, one moment … £800 million … one moment, let's just try to translate it … from about 1200 … It is about £800 million for one year. But, you see, that really wouldn't do.
JH
Could we [word missing] money?
PM
Of course, we could. But we shall be back here battling for other years and having the same row all over again. And this is what I was saying to them: ‘Look, if you'll extend that for another year with agreement that the the end of that year we have a fundamental review of the whole of budgetary policies, maybe we could close on it’. But what we simply cannot do is accept something for one year and then have them say ‘We've dealt with you. You must go back to the enormously high contributions that we're having now’. That's just not possible. You know, we've been arguing about this so long now that I really must insist that we get a longer settlement than one year. And that's partly what the argument was about. And I felt partly that I was being pressured into accepting one year and I wouldn't. And when you added to that some of the things they were expecting us to accept linked with that package: totally unacceptable things on products and surplus in agriculture; totally unacceptable things on sheepmeat for British farmers and our New Zealand friends and unacceptable things on fish for our fishermen. Add that together and I could not possibly have accepted that.
JH
Again, before Dublin, you seemed more urgent for a settlement. Are you now sure that because of their anxiety to raise farm prices, you can in fact hold out longer on this than our timescale?
PM
I think that perhaps I'm getting to know how slowly our partners move on these matters and I look at things, as you know, very logically do a few sums and say ‘That's a reasonable settlement. Let's agree to it’. It takes them a good deal longer. I [end p2] had thought that they would have a good deal more sympathy than they had. After all, to me, the contributions we're making are enormous but if you start to divide them up among the others, then the extra amount they have to pay is very much less and I had thought they would be more willing to pay it. They're not, even though the vast majority of them are actually net beneficiaries from the budget. They're still, even after a compromise that they were offering, expecting us to be very considerable net contributors.
JH
Given this lever you clearly have of a veto on farm price rises, will Mr. Walker be maintaining that in the first week of May?
PM
We shall hope to reach agreement on farm prices and on other things within roughly the same period of time as they reach agreement on the budget. Now, certainly, there's a limited time. Last year I remember the agricultural farm prices settlement came in June and it was hotly debated and hotly contested and so will this one be. It is being already and there are some things in which would have been very highly criticised had I actually agreed to them, because milk and sugar, as you know are in surplus already and to put up the prices on those things as much as they were proposing would have met with a lot of protests at home.
JH
But I think you have said you will not agree to that prices deal until you get your prices …
PM
No, we would not. And that's only reasonable. I have a problem which I hope they will help us to solve. They have a problem which they need my help to solve. So we're still in this reciprocal position.
JH
Well, if it is reciprocity, … … it's not bargaining but it's reciprocity. Did you get them clearly to understand that if you do get the offer that you need and must have on the budget, then they will get their 5 per cent farm price rise? [end p3]
PM
No, I did not. Indeed, right at the beginning of the budget debate … .
JH
What incentive is there for them?
PM
Well, there is, because you still have to do a good deal of bargaining on each of the other things on merit. But I made it perfectly clear at the beginning of the debate that, even if we got what was a reasonable settlement on the budget—and it would have been, of course, provisional on the other things—that there were certain things in the other settlements that I would have had to have argued with very strenuously because we hadn't agreed to them. They'd have been either damaging to the British housewife or damaging to our overall interests because, you see, the agricultural settlement they were proposing would have put a bigger proportion of the budget over to agriculture, just when they're all saying we ought to have a smaller proportion. The sheepmeat would have been very damaging to our farmers and treated them very unfairly compared with French farmers. It would have a new intervention fund. It would then have given us export subsidies so the stuff, having gone into intervention, could have been sold off cheaply elsewhere. Think what that would have done to the lamb market all over the world. And on fisheries—and you know how strongly I feel on fisheries—there was just one paragraph which I could never have accepted on behalf of our fishermen and I was bound to make my views very strongly felt there.
JH
It does sound as though you've got really rather a long way to go.
PM
Yes, indeed. So have they. But we shall have to go quite a long way. But you know, I've only been at this three times now and we still haven't quite got where we should be. This is what made me say ‘No, I will not accept for a year’. First, the other things you want to link in with it. Then, I've already been at it three times. I couldn't have come back within another year to have another argument. It's better to go once more and get it settled this time.